There is shown in copending patent application, Ser. No. 580,331, filed May 23, 1975 by Harris G. Rodgers, Sr. and entitled "Color Television Picture Tube Envelope," such application being assigned to the same assignee as the present application a picture tube envelope including a generally rectangular curved glass face plate having embedded, in each of the corner regions of the concave surface thereof, an end of a channel shaped pin for supporting an aperture mask adjacent such concave surface. Such aperture mask support pins may, for example, be of the type disclosed in copending patent application, Ser. No. 629,646, filed Nov. 6, l975 by Harris G. Rodgers, Sr. and entitled "Pin for Supporting the Aperture Mask In a Color Television Picture Tube" such application being assigned to the same assignee as the present application and now issued U.S. Pat. No. 3,988,631.
In order that the above mentioned face plate or viewing panel manufacturing or fabricating operations may be performed as rapidly as possible and economic advantages thereby attained, a group of four pin insertion guns or mechanisms may, for example, be employed at a selected work station in an assembly line for simultaneous insertion, in each corner of each of a plurality, series or succession of panels being intermittently and sequentially moved along such assembly line, of an aperture mask support pin such as that mentioned. To expedite, to the extent possible, the movement of the panels through the selected work or pin insertion station in said assembly line, it is expedient that there be employed pin insertion guns or mechanisms which operate substantially automatically and relatively rapidly so that such guns or mechanisms are prepared for inserting a set of four pins in a succeeding panel or face plate moved into the pin insertion station as a preceding panel, in said succession thereof, is moved out of such station. It is, accordingly, an object of the present invention to provide a pin handling and insertion mechanism for automatically rapidly handling each of a plurality of aperture mask support pins of the type mentioned and for insertion of each of the pins into the glass of face plates or viewing panels for color television picture tubes. Such pin handling and insertion mechanism may be advantageously employed, for example, in conjunction with a pin feeding apparatus or mechanism such as disclosed in copending patent application, Ser. No. 702,697, filed July 6, 1976 by Lawrence W. Phillips et al. and entitled "Pin Feeding Mechanism" such application being assigned to the same assignee as the present application. However, if found to be convenient or to be expedient to do so, the pins may be manually supplied to the mechanism of the present invention.
Other objections and characteristic features of the invention will become apparent as the description proceeds.